Day 304 of Firsts: Ride an Electric Bike

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart. ~Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green

This was such a cool experience. What’s an electric bike? Well, it’s a bike you pedal but it gives you a boost from a battery.

The best way to explain it is you can pedal up a very steep hill effortlessly. Your doing something but you’ve got help.

Philly Electric Wheels is the only distributor of electric bikes I know of in the area. The owner, Afshin Kaighobady, lets you give it a try for a free. You can also rent these bikes by the hour, day or weekend.

Check out our little ride. We were coming up a huge hill at the end and didn’t break a sweat. (Of course you can break a sweat if you want. Just turn down the “help”).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMPkYxxVf_Q]

The bike I was riding costs about two-thousand dollars. Still, if you’ve been thinking about using your car less, you’re the outdoor type, and you just want to go greener, this is a great way to go.

Some of the electric bikes have a throttle on them and you can ride them like a motorized scooter. I tried one. It was great until I forgot to let go of the throttle as I was getting off the bike. Oops. Sorry no video. Got a few little bumps and bruises. Driver error. But what a ride.

Comments

Glad you got to try out an electric bike! They are a ton of fun and practical! If you are going to be looking into purchasing an electric bike, you should check out the Pedego. Their website is http://www.pedego.com .